Eight Karawang firms sign labor agreements
Eight Karawang firms sign labor agreements
KARAWANG, West Java (JP): Eight companies yesterday signed Collective Labor Agreements with their employees.
Yesterday's signing has added to the eight companies here which have concluded similar agreements with their employees. Four companies employ more than 100 workers and another four employ fewer than this number.
Director General of Industrial Relations and Control of the Ministry of Manpower Suwarto has called on other companies to take similar steps.
"A labor agreement reflects good communications between employers and their workers because it has a crucial role in the efforts to avoid disputes," he said.
According to him, companies which have concluded such an agreement, have experienced fewer disputes compared to those without it.
"Experience tells us that companies which have a labor agreement shared only 5 percent of the total disputes in the country," he added.
However, Suwarto said that companies should put good communication above other matters, including a labor agreement and large salaries.
"Some big companies with high wage levels are not free from labor disputes," according to the director general. Citing an example, he said, HongKongBank in Jakarta is still to solve its dispute with the workers over the revision of a labor agreement.
Suwarto also witnessed yesterday the inauguration of committees on the health and occupational safety of 12 local companies.
The committee members, who include company representatives and workers, have the task of giving guidance to workers about the potential problems in these areas.
To date there are 67 companies in this regency which have set up such committees.
During the last two years, Karawang has rapidly become an industrial town although 50 percent of the 720 industries operating here employ fewer than 25 workers each.
And according to data at the local office of the Ministry of Manpower all the companies only employ about 69,000 people.
Among them only 36 have units of the All Indonesia Workers Union Federation. (03)